Chapter 4
FOUR
Cooper
UNDERGROUND
The tunnel’s concrete curves force us into unnatural positions. Can’t stand. Can’t stretch out. Just exist in this six-foot diameter pipe while Phoenix hunts above.
She shifts against the wall, trying to find comfort that doesn’t exist. The movement pulls her sweater tight across her chest, and I force my eyes away. Focus on the mission. Not on how her jeans hug curves that belong in fantasies, not protection details.
The emergency lighting from the basement barely reaches us here, casting everything in shadow.
Just enough light to see her face, the stubborn set of her jaw, the way auburn hair falls around her shoulders.
The dim glow catches highlights in those waves, making me want to wrap the strands around my fist.
Fuck. Even in a utility tunnel, she’s gorgeous.
The confined space means her scent fills every breath—vanilla from whatever she uses in her hair, something clean and feminine underneath. Close enough that when she shifts position, her knee brushes mine. Close enough to see the green of her eyes behind those stylish glasses when she looks at me.
Bad idea. Very bad fucking idea.
“So we just sit here?” Her voice echoes slightly in the tunnel. “For six hours? In this freezing pipe?”
“Yes.”
“That’s your whole plan? Hide and wait?”
“Alive is better than dead.”
She pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. The position makes her look smaller, but also does interesting things to her already impressive cleavage. Voluptuous. That’s the word. Full breasts that would overflow my hands, hips made for gripping.
Professional distance. Right.
“I need answers,” she says, because of course she does. “What exactly is Phoenix? Is this connected to what happened to Sarah, David, and Lisa?”
The questions pour out rapid-fire. Typical academic—needs to understand, analyze, categorize every piece of information. Can’t just sit quietly and wait for extraction.
“Phoenix is a military AI targeting system. Supposedly shut down. Actually privatized. Now it kills anyone it considers a threat.”
“What counts as a threat?” She pauses, eyes closing briefly, then corrects herself. “Who does it count as a threat?”
Smart woman. Even terrified, she’s thinking.
“Anyone investigating it.”
“Privatized by whom?”
“Unknown.”
“Unknown? That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer.”
Her frustration radiates across the small space between us. She shifts again, and her shoulder bumps mine. Warm. Soft. Dangerous.
“I’m not some helpless victim you need to manage,” she says, fire flashing in those green eyes. “I’m a former DoD encryption specialist with top secret clearance. I can handle the truth.”
The DoD background explains the sharp questions. The rapid threat assessment. Also explains why Phoenix wants her dead—she has the skills to decode their communications.
“The truth is, we don’t know who controls Phoenix. Could be defense contractors. Shadow government. Private military. The system covers its tracks.”
“But you’re investigating it.”
“No. I’m protecting someone Phoenix wants dead. Big difference.”
“What do you mean by big difference?”
“My job is keeping you alive. You stay alive by doing what I say when I say it. And keeping your mouth shut when I tell you to.”
Her jaw clenches. “Are you always this bossy?”
“Yes.”
“You’re an ass.”
“You’re alive.”
She huffs out a breath that might be frustration or amusement. Hard to tell in the dark. “We’re not here to be friends, I get it. But we’re stuck in this pipe for the foreseeable future. We might as well talk.”
“Talking makes noise. Noise attracts attention.”
“From who? We’re in a sealed tunnel behind a locked grate thirty feet from the entrance. You said they won’t search down here.”
Valid point. Annoying, but valid.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Start with who you really are. I don’t even know your name. Are you military? Ex-military? Private contractor? How long have you been doing this? Why this job? Why protection work?”
Jesus Christ. The woman can’t stop asking questions even when her life depends on silence.
“Cooper McKenzie.” The name feels formal in the confined space. “Former Delta Force. Six years. Cerberus Security. Four years. Protection because it pays. This job because Mason assigned it.”
“That’s your autobiography? Twenty one words?”
“Covers the basics.”
“It covers nothing! What’s your specialty? Weapons? Demolitions? Communications? Where have you operated? What made you leave Delta? Who’s Mason? What kind of—”
“Stop.”
She blinks at the command. “Stop, what?”
“Talking.”
“But—”
“Phoenix teams are still in the building. Sound carries through pipes. You want to broadcast our position?”
Not entirely true. The mechanical systems create enough white noise to mask normal conversation.
But if she keeps talking, I might do something stupid.
Like notice how her lips move when she forms words.
Or how she gestures with her hands even in the confined space.
Or how her breath catches when she gets excited about a topic.
All dangerous observations.
She falls silent, but I can practically hear her brain working. Cataloging information. Forming new questions. Planning her next verbal assault.
She makes a small sound that might be indignation or amusement. But she stops talking. For about thirty seconds.
“How long have we been down here?”
I check my watch. “Forty-three minutes.”
“So five hours and seventeen minutes to go.”
“If you’re going to count down every minute—”
“I’m not. I’m just—processing. This is how I handle stress. I talk. I analyze. I question. It’s who I am.”
“It’s going to get you killed.”
She pulls back slightly to look at me. In the dim light, her eyes are more gray than green. “You really think they’ll find us down here?”
“If you keep talking? Yes.”
“You’re just saying that to shut me up.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
Despite everything, my mouth twitches. Almost a smile. She’s terrified, hunted, trapped in a tunnel with a stranger, and still she pushes back. Still she questions. Still she refuses to be silenced.
Stubborn woman.
“Tell me about the code,” I say, partly for intelligence and partly to give her something to focus on besides fear.
Her entire demeanor changes. She straightens, eyes lighting up behind those glasses.
“It’s fascinating, actually. I was analyzing frequency patterns in Roman military dispatches when I noticed anomalies.
The mathematical distribution was all wrong for ancient encryption. Too sophisticated. Too—modern.”
She launches into an explanation involving algorithms, frequency analysis, and pattern recognition. Most of it goes over my head, but her passion is clear. This is her element—solving puzzles, finding patterns, understanding the incomprehensible.
“So you cracked Phoenix’s communication system by accident?”
“Not cracked. Not entirely. I found fragments. Enough to know someone was using our historical research as camouflage for modern encryption. But the full code …” She shakes her head. “I’d need more time. More data.”
“Time you don’t have.”
“Because Phoenix wants me dead.” The fear creeps back into her voice. “An AI decided I’m a threat and sent killers after me. How is that even legal?”
“It’s not.”
“Then why doesn’t someone stop it?”
“We’re trying.”
“We?”
“Cerberus. Others. People who know what Phoenix really is.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. Then, “Have you faced Phoenix before?”
The question hits unexpectedly. Memories of Ryan and Celeste, of operations gone wrong, of an AI that adapts and learns and never stops hunting.
“Yes.”
“Did everyone survive?”
“No.”
She tenses against me. “Oh.”
Silence stretches between us. Real silence this time, heavy with implication. Above us, through layers of concrete and steel, Phoenix teams continue their hunt. But down here, in our cold bubble of temporary safety, there’s just us.
“I’m scared,” she admits quietly.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Fear keeps you alive. Makes you careful. Makes you listen when I tell you to move.”
“Is that why you’re so …” She waves a hand vaguely. “Intense?”
Perceptive. Too perceptive.
“What are you afraid of?”
Failing. Losing another client. Watching someone die because I wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, careful enough. But those aren’t things you say out loud.
“Phoenix.”
“Liar.”
The word hangs between us. She’s right, of course. Phoenix is just a system. The fear runs deeper—fear of failure, of loss, of not being enough when it counts.
“Everyone’s afraid of something,” she continues. “I’m afraid of dying before I finish my research. Of never understanding the full pattern. Of being silenced before I can share what I’ve learned.”
“You’re afraid of being quiet.”
She laughs—soft, surprised. “Yes. I suppose I am. Silence feels like surrender.”
“Sometimes silence is survival.”
“Is that what you tell yourself? When you don’t talk about whatever haunts you?”
Too fucking perceptive.
“We’re not talking about me.”
“Why not? We have five hours to kill.”
“Because my history won’t keep you alive.”
“But it might help me understand you. And since my life is literally in your hands, I’d like to know more than your name and former employer.”
She has a point. But talking about Syria, about failures and ghosts and the weight of command decisions—that’s not happening. Not with her. Not with anyone.
“Ask something else.”
She considers, still pressed against my side for warmth. “Why protection work? You could do anything with your skill set. Private military, corporate security, consulting. Why choose to protect people?”
The honest answer is complicated. Protection is penance. Keeping others alive because I couldn’t keep my team alive. But that’s too much truth for a tunnel conversation with a stranger.
“It’s straightforward. Clear objectives. Keep the client alive.”
“That’s it? No deeper meaning?”
“Sometimes a job is just a job.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Doesn’t matter what you believe.”
She makes that sound again—frustration mixed with something else. “You’re impossible.”
“You’re exhausting.”
“Match made in heaven then.”
The words hang in the air, and she immediately tenses. “I didn’t mean—that came out wrong—I just meant we’re obviously incompatible, not that we’re matched, and definitely not—”
“Dr. Wren.”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.”
“Right. Okay. Stopping now.”
She lasts maybe ninety seconds.
“But seriously, how are we getting out of here when dawn comes?”